文档介绍：More Cambridge Books @
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9780521880886pre CUNY988/Peleg 978 0 521 88088 6 June 5, 2007 20:32
More Cambridge Books @
Democratizing the Hegemonic State
Political Transformation in the Age of Identity
This book provides a new, comprehensive analytical framework for the
examination of majority-minority relations in deeply divided societies.
Hegemonic states in which one ethnic pletely dominates all
others will continue to face enormous pressures to transform because they
are out of step with the new, emerging, global governing code that empha-
sizes democracy and equal rights. Refusal to change would lead such states
to lose international legitimacy and face increasing civil strife, instability,
and violence. Through systematic theoretical analysis and careful empirical
study of fourteen key cases, Ilan Peleg examines the options open to polities
with diverse populations. Challenging the conventional wisdom of many
liberal democrats, Peleg maintains that the preferred solution for a tradi-
tional hegemonic polity is not merely to grant equal rights to individuals,
a necessary but insufficient condition, but also to incorporate significant
group rights through gradual or megaconstitutional transformation. The
future of societies divided over ethnic relations remains critically important
to the possibility of global harmony.
Ilan Peleg is the Editor-in-Chief of Israel Studies Forum (since 2000) and
the author of Begin’s Foreign Policy, 1977–1983: Israel’s Turn to the Right
(1987) and Human Rights in the West Bank and Gaza: Legacy and Politics
(1995, selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 1996) and many
other scholarly books and articles. His recent studies have appeared in
journals such as the Middle East Journal and Nationalism and Ethnic Pol-
itics. Dr. Peleg’s expertise is in ethnic relations in deeply divided societies,
Middle East poli